All brands strive to convert first time buyers into lifetime loyalists - no easy task given our competitive price-driven and over-saturated digital marketplace. Constant technological advancements have catapulted the consumer ahead of tried and true marketing tactics, forcing brands to evolve by listening, adapting and ultimately responding in a way that resonates with customers on a deeper level. In an environment where customers have an endless parade of comparable products (often at a lower cost) at their fingertips, it's essential for brands to create unique marketing connections that breed evangelism. Join iMedia's Brand Summit for inspiration and tactics on how your brand can grow its base of customers into a loyal army ready and willing to sign on for life and convert their friends and families. At this summit, you will collaborate with peers and walk away with insights on:

The psychology behind customer brand loyalty

How to create affinity with Millenials, moms, matures, eco-conscious and other key demographic segments, including the importance of social marketing

How brands stay ahead of technology advances in an increasingly fragmented crowded-digital marketplace

Ways to engage and leverage your loyalists and other "power customers" in emerging digital environments

Attendee Benefits

For a limited number of publishers/service providers, the iMedia Brand Summit offers an exclusive and intimate opportunity to have meaningful interaction with marketers to help them address their digital marketing challenges and strategies. iMedia regulates the number of "seller" passes sold to ensure a rich buyer-to-seller ratio. Besides the opportunity to collaborate with marketers in content sessions, plenty of networking is possible at numerous meal and reception functions. iMedia Summits also include our unique One:One Networking Program!

Please be our guest and Request Your Invitation. Space is limited so act now. This summit is FREE to qualified marketers* and offers:

3 full days of peer-to-peer exchange (including full-day marketers-only meeting)

Informative, insightful sessions & keynotes on the most timely and critical issues

Neither Sears nor Kmart (both retailers owned by Sears Holdings company) initially jump to mind when you think of high-tech brands. However, both of these iconic American retailers are successfully using digital initiatives to reach existing and potential customers and create brand loyalty. Julia's keynote will focus on the role of digital and engagement marketing to connect with customers in some unexpected ways. She will present case studies from both brands and tell the story of how Sears used content marketing to get credit for being the #1 fitness retailer in America and how Kmart reminded moms that they had the hottest toys of the season. She'll also share how Sears Holdings Company has turned a robust loyalty program into a new social shopping channel. These tried and true brands may surprise you with their ventures into social, mobile and e-commerce. Or, considering what a modern day version of the classic Sears Catalog would look like, maybe these ecommerce advances are not that surprisingï¿½

Hear a presentation on Intel and HP's groundbreaking music video campaign Tiësto's In the Booth (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11tN3s8k9lI). Intel and HP sponsored 10 YouTube episodes that delivered a behind-the-scenes look at the world tour of electronic music superstar Tiësto. Intel and HP not only sponsored the video production, but used subtle product placement throughout the series. The two companies partnered with Sharethrough to generate viewership and sharing of the campaign and to distribute the videos across their network of native promoted video placements, as well as to drive organic editorial coverage. It was an edgy, experimental campaign that paid off: millions of video views, thousands of social engagements across the web, and a 4% clickthrough rate to co-branded Facebook page. With this campaign, Intel and HP demonstrated how to successfully utilize long-form branded video content to reach a highly targeted demographic in a deeply engaging way.

An Iconic Brand Builds Loyalty with a New Generation of Baseball Players

Some brands need help hitting it out of the ballpark. Louisville Slugger realized it needed to move beyond relying on its iconic label to better connect with and create loyalty with a new generation, and they did just that. Hear from Louisville Slugger's Kyle Schlegel and MEplusYOU CMO Ian Wolfman about how the brand's World Series Bat Drop promotion engaged fans through experiential marketing, ultimately creating a platform that united baseball fans around the country.

LOYAL3 offers a technology platform that enables consumers to buy stock in the brands they love as easily as they buy products, directly from the company's website and Facebook page. And when brands turn consumers into owners, great things happen.

Ownership changes everything. According to Bain & Company, when a consumer becomes an owner, they spend 54% more and refer 2x the number of new consumers. And according to Opinion Research Corp, 48% of your customers want to own you.

For the first time ever it's possible to own your consumer, by making it easy for them to own you. And in today's tough zero-growth economy, deepening brand engagement and increasing consumer economics is an idea whose time has come.

Most digital sellers spend their time convincing, cajoling and conspiring with digital agencies about programs, pricing and ideas that will delight "the client." But for most of us, our actual face-to-face time with the client is limited and fleeting. So what do they really think? Upstream Group CEO and iMedia Senior Analyst Doug Weaver leads a discussion with three top marketers to glean the kind of candid insights that can really drive your business forward. What's their view on automation vs. environment? When and what do they want to hear directly from the publisher or network salesperson? And how can you balance their needs with those of the agency. Don't miss this provocative seller-focused session.

Brands as Content Creators

As far back as 1996, Bill Gates wrote a now industry famous article titled "Content is King." Gates predicted a huge opportunity in digital media for brands to supply both information and entertainment to educate and delight their consumers. In 2012, almost all brands, both business-to-business and business-to-consumer, have stepped into the role of publisher within digital channels and delivered information and entertainment to their customers. But where is the road map for marketing success in content development? Who are the right partners to help brands reach their goals as content creators? Join AJ Vernet, CEO, Rey Interactive, in a best practices discussion with case studies from Sony Playstation and the Clorox Company.

Using 'Experience' to Build Entertainment brand Loyalty and Fandom - A Closer Look at the Loyal Sony Playstation Consumer Through the Lens of Sony E3

Perhaps as in no other category, Entertainment brand marketers aim to convert first-time buyers into lifetime loyalists and fans, while facing the unique challenge of being constantly engaging, fresh and ahead of the curve creatively and technologically. Today, Entertainment and Gaming brand loyalists and fans hold the bar higher than ever before and expect a certain level of insider content access -- not to mention product sophistication, cross-platform community programming and robust social utility. To build customer loyalty in this space, a brand must work across platforms and cultivate a certain mindset among its loyalists, in a very experiential way.

Join Michael Brynteson of Sony PlayStation and his media production partner AJ Vernet of Rey Interactive as they explore the case of Sony PlayStation at E3, an annual platform their teams have used strategically to build the kind of lasting, exhuberent loyalty and fandom all Entertainment brands dream of.

The presentation will focus on the Sony E3 execution as it's been coordinated across platforms and implemented over the past 2-3 years to spur fandom and cultivate loyalty. Hear insights on how Sony PlayStation has executed its strategy in a cross-platform approach to:

It's true what they say... personality can go a long way, especially when it comes to building brand loyalty. Challenging a preconceived notion of ketchup as the preferred condiment of choice for many Americans, Hidden Valley Ranch partnered with BuzzFeed to create a winning social advertising campaign in "Clash of the Condiments," which showed all the best reasons why ranch dressing is superior to ketchup. And, more importantly this social campaign succeeded in changing brand perception through branded content and word-of- mouth marketing. Join Andy Wiedlin, Chief Revenue Officer at BuzzFeed and Julie Jensen, Senior Group Manager at Clorox as they present recent research, data and a case study that explains how brand affinity and loyalty can develop with the right social branded content. How can humor, creativity and original content appeal to an online community and create an ultimate brand experience? How can advertisers and marketers maximize their digital spending to further develop and grow a loyal fan base even after the campaign ends?

Social Listening

Listening to customers is an enormous challenge today because of the many digital platforms that allow and encourage consumers to megaphone their opinion of your brand, products and services. Praise for your brand within a social environment can add considerable brand equity to leverage - but how do brands tap into the right set of influencers? And a disgruntled customer - or worse, a set of customers - can wreak quick havoc on brand image and sales (think Chick-fil-A's recent crisis management issue). Jeff Ragovin, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, Buddy Media, will share how smart brands like illy and Carnival Cruise Lines listen and respond to both their loyal fans and their customers with complaints.

The marketing industry is undergoing the biggest transformation it's seen in 60 years, and it's all being driven by the unprecedented growth of social networks. Listening platforms for social media have emerged to create a proactive way for brands to hear the voice of the customer and deliver change immediately.

What are the new trends in listening?

How are brands bridging the gap between online and offline social data?

How are brands managing crisis?

How are they structured to handle social?

The Art and Skill of Customer Listening in the Digital World

Customers The Marketing industry is undergoing the biggest transformation it's seen in 60 years, and it's all being driven by the unprcedented growth of social networks. Listening platforms for social media have emerged to create a proactive way for brands to her the voice of the customer and deliver change immediately.

What are the new trends in listening?

How are brands bridging the gap between online and offline social data?

How are brands managing crisis?

How are they structured to handle social?

illy Café

The world we live in today is the social graph. The objects we read, watch, recommend, and purchase are choices fueled by the implicit and explicit social influence of our personal networks, online and offline. The authorities we've trusted to tell us what is best to buy, where to eat, and what is cool are all moving over to make room for the single biggest, most trusted authority of all: us, every one of us and the active social network or graph of people who surround us. The challenge for the illy caffè team was to increase brand awareness and purchase intent for the popular international brand here in America. How could they easily identify potential customers at scale and know how to best reach them? Through the social graph and powerful real-time technology, 33Across built the illy Brand GraphTM to predict a massive number of consumers and reveal their social attributions and interests. By tapping into the connections between a brand's loyalists and their closest friends, the social graph heightened advertising effectiveness and empowered the illy team to create actionable value from the big data that surrounded their brand. illy was then able to captivate these coffee drinkers with high-impact rich media ads to engage them at the most relevant time and place. During the campaign, these ads efficiently accomplished the dual goal of driving strong ROI along with heightened engagement from the illy audience. The data insights revealed that this influential group of brand loyalists shares 27% more content than the average Food and Beverage consumer, thus the incorporation of additional share functionalities yielded positive WOM buzz for the illy brand. As illy consumers also view 20% more video content than the industry average, the implementation of pre-roll and expandable video units is an effective means to engage this audience. With these findings, the team was able to include high-impact units embedded with sharing features to capitalize on a highly social audience and optimize campaign effectiveness on top-performing days.

12:15 PM - 1:00 PM
Boxed Lunch
Brought to you by:

1:00 PM - 2:50 PM
A new by-appointment networking program for buyers and sellers, during which each has an opportunity to participate in a series of 10-minute introductory meeting. Sponsored by:
Brought to you by:

The connected consumer has forced marketing organizations to evolve. Samsung Mobile has adapted to the consumer by using real-time analytics and insights from social data to connect to its consumer. The result: a surge in the U.S. that propelled the company from being a relatively nascent player in the smartphone space to the leader in the smartphone category. Join VP, strategic marketing at Samsung Telecommunications America, Brian Wallace, as he is interviewed by Founder and CEO of Networked Insights, Dan Neely, about the ingredients of a modern marketing organization and how Samsung used real-time consumer intelligence to outsmart its competition.

Seeking to identify, engage, and activate cat loyalists, Petco created and launched Caturday in July of this year. The campaign leverages relevant and fun cat memes with cat care and nutrition information to provide a unique and valuable content experience. Petco partnered with Hill's Pet Nutrition to launch the campaign to raise awareness for both the Pet Specialty Brand and Retailer.

Want to know what brands think about "Big Data?" They think that small nuggets of insight are worth a lot of heavy lifting. When it comes to measuring loyalty campaigns, you might be surprised how precise some companies at the vanguard have become in terms of measuring their campaign successes. Join what promises to be a provocative roundtable discussion facilitated by former Mediacom CEO and industry gadfly Jon Mandel, who now runs PrecisionDemand. Jon will be joined by Mark Keeney, VP Marketing at Rhapsody, Quinn Kilbury, Sr Brand Manager & Innovations, PepsiCo, and Robin Opie, SV for Analytics at Datalogix, to look at measurement on different platforms and within different consumer marketing environments, with an eye toward developing loyalty. This session will examine how the marrying of purchase data to media consumption data, as a practice, is being leveraged to glean insights on loyalty. Two client cases will be woven into an informal roundtable discussion -- with concrete illustrations are provided.

Join Summit Co-Host Adam Kmiec on an exploration of the new technologies that are delighting consumers around their areas of passion. While today's consumers are indeed more difficult to reach across our granted landscape, they are relying enmasse on new technologies to add value and entertainment to their lives. Kmiec will showcase how leading marketers are marketing with success on these new platforms.

Everybody Loves Music

"Music can change the world because it can change people." When Bono was quoted from an interview in 1983, he was speaking directly to the lasting emotional power of music, and the way it serves to constantly evolve our social fabric. Music is a unique passion point, cutting across all boundaries - geography, gender, race, age, religion - and ever-present in nearly all aspects of our lives.

Over the last 15 years, technology has had a revolutionary impact on how we interact with music. It has never been easier to create, play, discover or share the music that we love, and collectively we spend more time listening than ever before.

In this session, you'll learn how music listening is evolving and how marketers are leveraging new technology platforms to create music experiences that listeners love.

Everybody Loves Social

Engagement, engagement, engagement. It seems like everybodyï¿½s talking engagement these days, but no one quite agrees on what it is, how to generate it or what to do with it. What is engagement? Is engagement the answer for brands? How do you measure it?

In this case study session, you will hear from John Capano of SocialVibe and Patty Everett of Turner Media Group as they discuss the tactics and technology they use to leverage brand engagement, build relationships with valued consumers, and drive industry-leading results. With tips on how to foster brand-to-consumer engagement at crucial "pinch" points online, and a demonstration of how Turner uses interactive advertising to enhance its fans' digital experiences, you'll learn about how a combination of the right technology and content drives better results and deeper engagement for marketers.

2:30 PM - 4:50 PM
Free Time

2:30 PM - 5:00 PM
Shipping Desk
Brought to you by:

4:50 PM - 6:40 PM
A new by-appointment networking program for buyers and sellers, during which each has an opportunity to participate in a series of 10-minute introductory meetings with individuals they choose before the event. Sponsored by:

In what was an inaugural hit last September, iMedia is proud to bring back and premier the second installment of, "The Naked Brand," at this year's Brand Summit! Jeff Rosenblum, documentary writer and director, will share clips, behind-the-scenes footage, research and lessons learned from his groundbreaking new film, The Naked Brand. The documentary is about the upcoming advertising revolution. It tells the surprising story about how changes to the advertising industry can help corporations save the planet one small step at a time. Featured in the film are prominent CEO's, CMO's, creative geniuses, athletes and authors, including Kevin Plank of Under Armour, Tony Hsieh of Zappos, Yvon Chouinard of Patagonia, Shaquille O'Neal and Alex Bogusky.

Location

At first view, the airy sienna tones of Loews Coronado Bay Resort enchant and inspire you. This gorgeous resort is located on the most exclusive coastline in the country. This historic landmark won't fail to exceed any guest's expectations. The Mediterranean on the Pacific.